New Culture is an online  magazine containing articles on arts, culture, philosophy, history, development studies, social and political commentary and various other fields

Listening Across the Table

The Listening Biennial invites everyone, the audience-listeners across the globe, to a conversation between and with some of the participating artists in the Biennial sitting (digitally) across the table along with the curator. The artists share

antagonistics by sudipta dawn

chimera Days sedated, zombies flocking the streets – victims of nostalgia, led on by banners and glow signs into mirages to drink coke, pepsi, thumbs up, whisky, vodka, rum. The cityś a mindless kitsch, indulgent, delinquent, drunk. The effulgence rests on the ephemeral glitters, hiding all that is permanently deformed. The eyes don´t see, don´t…

The Decroux Way to A Promethean Actor

As a part of our Master’s series , here we take a brief look at the ways of Étienne Decroux. Decroux’s ways are a way of preparation of the actor rather than rehearsals. The importance of preparation has been well elucidated by Richard Schechner as he says that ” Rehearsal is a way of setting…

a brief interview with janardan ghosh by rijita chatterjee

A Brief Interview with Janardan Ghosh by Rijita Chatterjee in The Year 2010 for Surrey University Rijita – Mr. Ghosh, first let me start with a very fundamental question: when and how did you get into theatre? Janardan – There was a familiar desire to take part in my school’s annual plays which initiated me…

a dialogue with roger jenkins

Roger Jenkins is a storyteller based in Singapore. He has visited Kolkata in 2016 to conduct a series of storytelling workshops and to perform for children. We speak to him about various aspects of storytelling.

A Text for Justice. Adaptation of Badal Sircar’s Bhool Rasta

“Return back…. A homecoming… Bas… is that all… do you accept it… is it that linear… simple… I don’t buy the story…. The girls walked back… do you call it walking…their feet dragged on the dusty road… the hip movements seemed disrupted…. heads bent down…. Lips blacked out red… and the bodies … I don’t…

the challenge of the oceanic feeling: romain rolland’s mystical critique of psychoanalysis and his call for a “new science of the mind” : a talk by ayon maharaj – a report

Theatre Adda : Park Street Sessions was fortunate to host Ayon Maharaj, a liberal and young monk from the order of Ramakrishna Mission, Belur, West Bengal. He delivered a talk on May 6, 2017 titled ´The Challenge of the Oceanic Feeling: Romain Rolland’s Mystical Critique of Psychoanalysis and His Call for a “New Science of…

digambarim : philosophy, influences and practice

The influences of Derrida and philosophy of eco- feminism have sparked off our creative juices when we decided to start a storytelling platform which would deconstruct the way stories were told and perceived & the paradigms which they represented. This is how the idea of ‘Katha’koli’ emerged. We decided to approach the semantics of paradigm…

jean jacques lemêtre : the musical soul of théâtre du soleil

Jean-Jacques Lemêtre has composed the music for all shows of the Théâtre du Soleil since 1979. He has performed with several French symphonic orchestras, engages – partly exclusively – in the music and the instruments of the Middle Ages (Orchestre Médiéval de Paris), works with Pierre Boulez in his Orchestre Inter contemporain. In between he…

cinema festivals play a key role concurrently with distribution networks : an interview with andre ceuterick, executive director of festival international du film d’amour de mons

Recently, Embassy of Belgium with Wallonie-Bruxelles International (WBI), Goethe institute Max Mueller Bhavan, Italian Embassy Cultural Centre,  Camões-Portuguese Embassy Cultural Centre  & Embassy of Switzerland in India, in association with Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, & Culture Monks presented the 1st edition of the ‘ Festivals from Europe” in Kolkata, from September 30, 2016…

sudipta’s blog

Performance Art – Live Media Performance Art of Francesca Fini  written by Sudipta Dawn. Feb 19, 2017 Live media performance art is an art form which has evolving in its current form since the 70’s. Francesca Fini is a live media performance artist from Italy and she was in India in January – February 2017, for…

Dialogue with Anna Helena McLean

Anna Helena McLean is a physical theatre practitioner and teacher, singer, cellist, theatre director and the founder of Moonfool ( theatre company). She has devised her training philosophy, which she calls ‘Actor Chorus Text’.  and  She is based in London, UK & collaborates with Culture Monks,  to run training programs and  joint – productions in…

A tribute to Badal Sircar including excerpts of Badal Sircar’s letter to Richard Schechner, dated November 23, 1981

Theatre Adda – Park Street Sessions, celebrates Badal Sircar’s 91st birthday through a performance by Parnab Mukherjee and Janardan Ghosh, both eminent theatre practitioners and performers, who have worked closely with Badal Sircar Culture Monks, Best of Kolkata Campus in collaboration with Drishya presents REMEMBERING THE THIRD ANGULARITY in a performance tribute to Badal Sircar…

dialogue with nicola pianzola on his project megalopolis

an interview with Nicola Pianzola – founder & performer of the theatre group called Instabili Vaganti (from Italy). The interview is about their project called Megalopolis which is about the body & identity in new urban spaces.

Dialogue with Janardan Ghosh

Dr. Payal Trivedi in dialogue with Janardan Ghosh, on his experience of directing Hayavadana. Payal: Firstly please tel us something about the choice of doing Hayavadana for the contemporary audience. Janardan: Well…. it was Sri Shyamanand Jalan’s (the founder of Padatik) advice to do a Girish Karnad play. Girish was then in Kolkata attending a Badal Sircar Festival.…

Theatre is transcendental. Just like experiencing ‘Brahman’ – Janardan Ghosh

Theatre is transcendental. Just like experiencing ‘Brahman’. Primordial Theatre was used to communicate with the Gods.  It seems that the notions of God and performance were born together.  What was the pressing need for these creations? One common answer could be to search for an abstraction named ‘Truth’. While ritualistic theatre has thinned a lot,…

The making of Hayavadana by Janardan Ghosh

Janardan Ghosh, takes us through the making of Girish Karnad’s play Hayavadana , which he directed in 2010. The play which was staged at Padatik Theatre, ran successfully for 56 shows and received much critical acclaim. Janardan’s Havavadana, was path breaking in so many ways. The use of interdisciplinary art & performance practices, physical theatre techniques,…

Dialogue with Diniz Sanchez (Spicy Tutuboy)

“Spicy Tutuboy keeps on questioning pre-conceived ideas of identities, sexualities and gender!”- An interview by Abhijit Ganguly This is an interview with Diniz Sanchez , a contemporary dancer and a physical theatre exponent. Diniz is Portuguese and spends most of his times travelling around the globe. His pseudonym ‘Spicy Tutuboy’, is intriguing for its an entirely new character.…

Dialogue with Honza Svasek

Here we present a dialogue with Honza Svasek – A Butoh performer from Netherlands. We were  delighted to have with us in Feb this year, as a part of the Kolkata International Butoh Festival. This interview was conducted by Abhijit  Ganguly and was published in his blogkolkatakonnector.blogspot.in & he has kindly consented to reproduce this interview.if you have…